Events

About

theartistandhismodel is a curated portal of all things creative and inspirational for creative professionals, students, and anyone who shares the same love for art and design started in 2005. The site has since then featured over 3000 creative professional across 80 cities.

Upcoming Events

Internationally acclaimed Indonesian artist Arkiv Vilmansa debuts in Singapore with his solo exhibition, One or Nothing, a graphical take on Singapore’s relentless pursuit of being number one. Singapore's first designer toy-inspired exhibition ‘One or Nothing’ is a series of twelve paintings that are based on uniquely Singaporean icons. The exhibition invites art and toy enthusiasts to explore the distinct Singaporean way of living through the perspective of an international artist. Arkiv's signature style incorporates fluid and curvaceous lines paired with bright vivid colours which is seen in many of his paintings. ‘Arkiv Instant’, his first vinyl toy figurine, is also one of his most recognised works. The exhibition runs at the FLABSLAB gallery at One Commonwealth from 16 November to 30 November. >>

Wake Me Up Music, Singapore's premium indie record label, is taking a long long nap after more than a decade of contribution to the Singaporean music scene. Before we take that nap, let's bring back the old times and have one hell of a party! The two-day show will feature current and past Wake Me Up Music bands and also other bands who have been such great friends to us. This will probably be the LAST TIME you'll see bands like Surreal, Sky in Euphoria, Vertical Rush, Marchtwelve, My Squared Circle and Pension State come together for a show like this. Show Details: Venue - Home Club (20 Upper Circular Road) Date & Time - 10 December 2011 (Sat): 8.00pm-10.00pm 11 December 2011 (Sun): 4.30pm-10.00pm Charge - $10 for 2-Day Pass (Tickets sold at door) >>

Today we have a conversations with Yew Chong, an accountant by day and a mural artist on weekends.

Yanda: Hello Yew Chong. Tell us something about yourself and how old are you? Is being an accountant your day job?
Yew Chong: I am a true blue Singaporean who grew up in old Chinatown in the 70s with fond memories (born 1969). I studied accountancy and has worked in finance and accounting for over 20 years (still in finance today!) I’m happily married with two children.

Tell us through your day-to-day work life?
I manage a department in a multi-national company providing finance and administration services to internal customers. My day-to-day job involves more of managing my team members and internal customers, more than crunching numbers, contrary to what many people think accountants only do.

Is it tough juggling your mind over the freedom in art with the numbers and accounting?
Actually it is not tough to juggle. When I am at the office, my mind is fully focused on work issues. I like it that my employer has so far empowered me with the freedom to manage. When I am drawing or painting, my mind is also very free and fully focused on creating that piece of art or craft, sometimes even forgetting to rest! When my mind is free from work and art, it wanders, reflects its present surrounding and dreams far, eg. next project, next travel destination. To be able to do all these freely, I must say how thankful I am to my whole family, especially my wife who has empowered me with this freedom!

Provision Shop. Everton Road, Singapore

The money must be good it seems?
The money from finance work is ok lah, mainly due to my accumulated 20 years of experience and seniority. It surely beats the money from art and craft for now as I only started painting for commissions since November 2015.

How did the mural art thing started? Was it a SG50 thing?
My works are totally unrelated to SG50. In fact, I missed the boat as I painted my very first mural only in late August 2015 when the hype was over. I managed to paint murals only after I quit my finance job in June 2015 to take a break and do something different for a while. The idea of mural painting however started way back in 2014 when I bumped onto Ernest Zacharevic’s works in Victoria Street. See my facebook post in 2014: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152117815223610&set=a.10150917894768610.435348.591753609&type=3&theater

How long do you take to finish a mural? Was it a one man thing?
The time needed to complete a mural depends on its size, design complexity, logistics complexity and the weather. The 7 murals I have painted so far ranged from 2 days to 2 weeks of work. My latest two murals in Tiong Bahru were painted in two days each. I think I learnt the tricks, hence getting more efficient. The “Provision Shop” in Spottiswoode Park Road took 2 weeks mainly because it rained everyday in the afternoons, so maybe it was just about 1 week of work. So far, I painted all the murals single handedly, but with lots of moral and logistics support from family, owners, neighbours, friends and even passers-by. In my next few projects, there will be some collaboration with friends.

Are these commissions? Invited by some government agencies?
For the first two murals at Everton Road, I approached the house owner to allow me to paint on his property walls, thus they are not commissioned. They are like my advertisements and I’m glad the house owner didn’t charge me for the space. All subsequent murals were commissioned.

It’s funny, but maybe illustrative street art means legal.
In Singapore, in theory, all kinds of street arts require some form of approvals, regardless of the style. For private properties, which are not gazetted with any conservation or other status, it may simply require the house owner’s approval. For gazetted private properties, HDB or other public buildings, multiple approvals may be required from the owners, URA, HDB, BCA, LTA, Town Councils and Resident Committees. Seeking approvals can be a very time-consuming and cumbersome process, but that ensures I don’t land up in the courts or even jail! I understand the need for the authorities to control street art, however I hope these numerous authorities can come together to make the process more seamless and less bureaucratic in order not to stifle ground-up initiatives.

How would you feel to see them being destroyed by bird shit, stains and whats not one day?
Murals are never meant to be permanent. I always warn all the house owners that the murals will be destroyed by the natural elements over time, no matter how high-tech the paints are against the elements. Those walls that are subject to direct sunlight (intense ultra-violet) and moisture will have the shortest lifespan, say about 3 years. I think some signs of aging, like colour fading, cracking wall and bird shits make the mural look mature and nostalgic. Some owners are also concerned about vandalism, but I think in Singapore, the risk is low. Nevertheless, whatever happens and when the time comes, I leave it to the owners to decide whether to whitewash the wall or restore the mural. If they decide to restore it, we also need to assess if it is even feasible and worth it.

Ruben Pang is a full time practising artist and graduate from the Lasalle College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Art (2010). Pang explores an intuitive method of painting. His paintings are projections of his psyche, reflecting on notions of prospect, arrival, and transformation. With no preconceived notion of how the painting should look like at its inception, Pang’s process of creation evolves with each mark added or subtracted from the painting surface.

His recent international shows include a solo exhibition, Aetheric Portraiture with Primae Noctis Art Gallery in Lugano, Switzerland and a group exhibition, Deep SEA with Primo Marella Gallery in Milan, Italy. Locally, he has exhibited and performed in the Singapore Art Museum, Lasalle College of the Art’s Praxis and Project Space, The Substation and Chan Hampe Galleries. He received the Winston Oh Travelogue Award (2010), the Georgette Chen Arts Scholarship (2009-2010), and the Lasalle Award for Academic Excellence and was a finalist in the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2010 and 2011.

Catch a glimpse of him and his work space in the video by The Creators Project below.

We were commissioned by Galeries Lafayette to concept, design, and produce its comprehensive retail windows directive on the famed Boulevard Haussmann.

Galeries Lafayette’s “Quoi de Neuf” has become, throughout its many seasonal editions, a must-see event for the discovery of new trends in fashion. This time, the department store was guided by the theme of the “white page”, to immerse the spectator in a surrealist universe, punctuated by purity and minimalism. In order to illustrate this concept, we created 16 window installations that highlights a thematic detail of the pure page, a characteristic that renders each product exceptional.